Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Pasta la vista, baby

The RCMP are looking into new claims regarding Brian Mulroney and the $300,000 he was paid by arms lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber back in '93 to, um, promote a pasta business Schreiber was interested in. Mr.Mulroney says "he was paid the money for private business dealings and was late paying income tax on the three $100,000 payments he received from Mr. Schreiber because he was traumatized by allegations made against him by the RCMP".

So far the RCMP are holding a preliminary examination that might lead to opening a formal investigation, and Harper, who is also apparently mentioned in Schreiber's affadavit, is going to appoint someone to advise him on how narrow a scope a full inquiry can have while still being, uh, 'full'.

Also at issue for Steve are the two letters containing the affadavit information allegedly sent to Harper by Schreiber in March and again in September - letters that were vetted by the 35 members of the Privy Council Office, apparently hired for the express purpose of just not getting the whole stove-piping thing.Back in January, the Justice Department prepared Airbus coaching notes for the current Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, who was formerly a parliamentary secretary with Mulroney : "Neither I nor my predecessor, the Honourable Vic Toews, received any briefing material related to this issue.''

And Harper stated this week that he was not about to become Schreiber's "penpal".

Unfortunately Mulroney sounds like he's getting set to feel traumatized all over again anyway.Here is his statement {emphasis mine}:

"Twelve years ago to the day, I was trying to deal with very grave and damaging accusations against me, contained in a letter sent to the Swiss authorities. These accusations were related to the sale in 1988 of Airbus planes to Air Canada, back then a Crown Corporation.

After a tough and lengthy battle against these false and horrendously libellous accusations, the government of the day had to admit that they had absolutely no evidence to support them, and apologized to me and my family. In addition, they had to reimburse me of all my legal and other expenses.

Twelve years later, the same people at the CBC and at certain other media organizations who were at the origin of the 1995 accusations are still conducting their vendetta. Last Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper decided that he needed the counsel of an independent third party to advise him on the course of action to follow after new allegations were made in an affidavit filed by Karlheinz Schreiber from his prison cell where he is detained pending the execution of an extradition orderconfirmed twice by the Supreme Court of Canada.

I will fully co-operate with the special adviser soon to be appointed by the Prime Minister, but I have come to the conclusion that in order to finally put this matter to rest and expose all the facts and the role played by all the people involved, from public servants to elected officials, from lobbyists to the police authorities, as well as journalists, the only solution is for the government to launch a full-fledged public commission of inquiry which would cover the period from 1988 to today.

Only then will the whole truth be finally exposed and tarnished reputations restored. I am willing to meet the special adviser to reiterate my conviction that this is the only way to prove to Canadians that I have done nothing wrong."G&M